JOHN EARLY
&
KATE BERLANT HIT THE EJECT BUTTON

BERLANT takes the wheel as the two LA-based buds get cozy on a car ride, cracking jokes and exaggerating conventions while dishing intimate musings about the practical truths of making art and living a modern life. “A place that I go when I'm high, that is the truth,” BERLANT confesses, “I get really mad at myself for wedding presents and baby presents that I've never given.”

JOHN EARLY: Hi, Kate. You're on with John Early.

KATE BERLANT: Hi, John Early. This is Kate.

JE: How you doing, doll? 

KB: Great. Driving us right now.

JE: I'm just gonna come in hard: are you high right now? 

KB: Nope. 

JE: Okay, good. Me neither. 

KB: This may be controversial, but I actually haven't been high in like two months.

JE: That is controversial given the photoshoot we're on the way to right now. Can you tell me about the abstaining?

KB: I'm not abstaining. I'm just… I'm never high when I perform and I've been performing so much. 

JE: Yeah. 

KB: I'm sort of senile with my use of… senile is not the word… I'm sort of…

JE: For the reader at home, we're driving to the photoshoot right now.

KB: What I'm trying to say is, I haven't been getting high because I've been performing all the time and I've only performed high once, like 10 years ago. And I absolutely hated the experience.

JE: What did it feel like?

KB: Again, this was so long ago that I barely recall, but I just remember feeling like they know I'm high.

JE: Yes. Which is always the fear, even socially when you're high: they know I'm high.

KB: They know.

JE: But why would that be a problem? I mean, it is kind of a problem. I think the fear is actually justified because it is weird to kind of go into a situation in an altered state when you haven't…

KB: Disclosed.

JE: Yeah. I'm beginning to wonder. I love weed. I find weed to be very creatively generative for me.

KB: For me weed is not in tune with my creativity. It's in tune with fun. 

JE: Interesting. 

KB: It makes me feel socially… not a relief of social anxiety because I don't experience social anxiety.

JE: I mean… what?!

KB: I don't think so.

JE: Really? You don’t? I do.

KB: I mean, sure, in the way that I think everyone does but I'm talking about crippling social anxiety. 

JE: I don't think you or I have crippling social anxiety. What we have is like, it's the other kind of social anxiety. I guess it’s just “hosting mania,” really.

KB: That's true.

JE: Even when you're not hosting, you could be hosting, right?

KB: Of course, controlling every environment, always. But I think that for me, what weed helps me do is not be a bitch. Not that I'm a bitch to people that I don't know, but if I'm in a bad mood and I'm being a little bitch…

JE: Uh huh…

KB: And feel kind of like I'm being curt or closed off or tense, it can really help loosen that.

JE: Weed makes me really lock in, conversationally.

KB: Exactly. Focused.

JE: It makes me focused. It makes me unselfconscious about being curious. 

KB: Aww. That's so sweet.

JE: When I bring weed into a social situation, it makes me go into a kind of unselfconscious interviewer stance. Hopefully not just pure interviewing, because that can also be hell in its own form of aggression. 

KB: I was about to say it makes me Italian.

JE: Yeah! 

KB: Or something. I was loving the Rose Los Angeles edibles…

JE: Nice drop.

KB: Effortless product placement. But those ones that you gave me were making me so happy, remember? I was screaming with laughter and joy. So, there is something that weed does do for me genuinely, which is to unlock laughter, joy and, um, appreciation.

JE: That's actually the number one thing for me, it unlocks silliness and laughter. Obviously we can achieve that, you know, in a sober state with each other.

KB: I know this is pathetic, but now I'm like, we should get high tonight. 

JE: It'd be really fun. I also love – and this is really kind of obvious – but I like watching movies stoned.

KB: Yup.

JE: Really love that. I mean, I do have the problem sometimes where everything I watch while stoned, I'm like – this is genius.

KB: Yeah, it really does do that.

JE: I can have the opposite reaction too. A kind of a very intense disdain for a movie. Either way it's heightened.

KB: It makes me able to relax into conversation sometimes. Now this is all just making me come off as a bitch, but a conversation that ordinarily might have me like, get me outta here. It allows me to dip in and be like, oh… what if I said this and then we went there.

JE: Oh, totally. I would love to go back to my Presbyterian church where I found all conversations to be so grueling. I would love to talk to all those old ladies again, but stoned. I would know how to get in there and ask about their lives. More recently, I do wonder sometimes about “altered states,” like almost on, you know, on a moral level.

KB: Yeah.

JE: Like, am I just hitting the eject button?

KB: Oh, honey, don't get me started. Do not go there.

JE: I'm not hitting the eject button in the sense that I'm getting high and then just zoning out on the couch and playing World of Warcraft.

KB: The eject button contains multitudes.

JE: Yeah.

KB: And different, you know, energies and purposes. 

JE: Is the weed induced conversational curiosity its own kind of eject button? I sometimes wonder.

KB: Sure, but what are you gonna do? If it's helping you become entranced and interested and curious… I'm trying to think of times that I've used weed as a way to provide a doorway to feeling more warm or more generous. I can feel myself feeling closed off or unable to tolerate anything that isn't just purely pleasurable. And weed comes along. What if there was pleasure here?

JE: Everyone has a story.

KB: You can fill out this form.

JE/KB: Oh my god, even this form has a story!

KB: Oh, no! That was totally my exit! Like a true stoner.

JE: Let the record show that we were on the way and we were only late due to being so wrapped up in this conversation. 

KB: We’re now gonna be four minutes late. I am, of course, chronically punctual.

JE: And my last name is Early. 

KB: “Sorry, I’m Early!” You ever done that?

JE: No. Weirdly, no. I’m not kidding. But everyone always kind of does it for me like, “Oh, you're early.” Or, “You're late, Mr. Early.”

KB: Yeah.

JE: Okay, now we're gonna switch the convo over to paranoia. Does weed induce paranoia for you? Or not necessarily paranoia, but like a kind of rumination?

KB: I feel like I was stoned when I saw Crimes of the Flesh, the Cronenberg movie…

JE: Or wait, wait, wait. That's not what it's called.

KB: Crimes of the Future! Yes, yes yes. Flesh. You hear Cronenberg, you think flesh, honey. This was a moment of paranoia. I was in line at the soda fountain. It was this new fangled soda fountain that was digital.

JE: I hate those.

KB: And it was all buttons like a video game. A bunch of them were down so there was a line of people to use this digital soda fountain from hell. I just wanted seltzer. There were a million buttons for every conceivable soda you could imagine and I was frozen. I start over performing like, “Oh god, look at me holding up the line.” But I really was in hell over holding up the line. And then I was like, “I'm just trying to find seltzer.” And this guy, totally fine and nice, came forward and did it for me. And I did this real over-the-top: “It was there the whole time!” He kind of barely smiled. I'm so stoned doing this and he must know because why else would I be struggling so much? And furthermore, why else would I be doing a little dance for him when no one in their right mind would do that? 

JE: What about when you're alone and high?

KB: That's when I have – as we've talked about – gone deep into the self and looking at all the past choices. Looking at all the patterns, squarely.

JE: Doing your inner taxes.

KB: I've thought to myself on a couple occasions, these revelations about my life when I'm stoned. 

JE: Yeah. 

KB: And I go, “Oh, no… well look what you gotta do now, honey.” And then in the moment I’ve gone, is this the truth? Or is the other truth the truth?

JE: Is it like unlocking some sort of deep super ego? Is it the super ego or the id that the weed is unlocking? It's a really good question. I struggle with this too, as you know. I was, famously, high alone in my bed one time and wrote in all caps in an iPhone note: MAJOR WORK TO CORRECT WHAT I’VE DONE. So, major work has become, what would you call it, a touchstone?

KB: An inside joke…

JE: Of a certain kind of weed induced paranoia.

KB: Major work.

JE: Major, major work. As you know I often sing on stage with a band and I would say every single time I get high, I have at least like a 20 minute period where I'm so disgusted with myself for singing on stage.

KB: Noooo.

JE: Not only how could you have ever done that, but how could you do it in the future? And that's where I go. And because it happens every single time I go, well, is this the truth? And then the next morning when I wake up I feel like it's not the truth.

KB: It's not the truth. A place that I go when I'm high, that is the truth, is I get really mad at myself for wedding presents and baby presents that I've never given.

JE: Oh, my god!  Absolutely. And here's a question for you: did you promise to give those presents? Did you go, it’s in the mail!

KB: No, there's no oral promise.

JE: Oral promise!

KB: I went to the wedding, the baby was born. I didn't send something. I mean, we're going backlog years, right?

JE: Me too. Me too. All the time. 

KB: I have this weird thing, I guess, because I haven't been married, where I'm like, do people really expect that? And I'm here to tell you: they do. 

JE: I have a story to tell you. I got an invitation to a baby shower and on the back of that invitation was a note that said, “You never sent me my wedding present.” 

KB: …

JE: Let the record reflect there has been five full seconds of silence.

KB: And that I turned my head to lock eyes.

JE: I mean, I'm in absolute shock. And here's the most I'll discuss “queerness” for this publication. I have never been invested in the ritual of marriage, you know? Why would it ever have been fundamentally meaningful to me as someone who always had to experience intimacy outside of…

KB: Roller rinks.

JE: Roller rinks! The bathrooms of roller rinks. 

KB: Okay.

JE: But why would I ever take it seriously? Why do I have to just understand…

KB: You dress up! Don't make us dress up!

JE: Exactly. You, you fly to fucking…

KB: Guam.

JE: It's completely insane to me. Here’s the thing. I gave an oral promise.

KB: Oh yeah, you can't do that.

JE: I think if either of us did feel the pressure, if either of us were like, “Where's my gift?” I would actually maybe feel paralyzed and kind of subconsciously act out… and not get you a gift.

KB: Totally. No one wants to do anything with a gun to their head. Also, registries, that's weird too. Here's where I've made the mistake. I go, I'm not gonna give them a gift off their registry, like some stranger. I'm not gonna get them a spatula.

JE: A kitchen spider. 

KB: I'm gonna go above and beyond. I'm gonna get them something personal, something that you can't get at William-Sonoma. And then I never do. 

JE: Of course. I know. It's so hard. I find registries to be both incredibly crass, but incredibly convenient.

KB: I just have to start going for the registries.

JE: And they appreciate that. Well, Kate, I hope this has been fun for you. 

KB: It really has been.

JE: It's been heaven to discuss cannabis with you, friendship and of course, to lightly touch down on queerness with you.

KB: Yeah.

JE: And without trying.

KB: I love the friendship. I love Would it Kill You to Laugh? I think there really are elements in there that are a window into the conversations that we have privately.

JE: Exactly. 

KB: And the jokes that we privately hold dear.

JE: And you know, a lot of the touches and some full ideas were 100% the result of weed. I think Would it Kill You to Laugh? is best enjoyed after smoking a fat one. So gather ye friends as ye may, roll a spliff, light up and watch Would it Kill You to Laugh on Peacock.

KB: With your best friend.

JE: We love you guys.

KB: Love you.